


Today We Escape

by khler



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drug Addiction, Drugs, F/F, Mention of abuse, Running Away, cis!girls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8841796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khler/pseuds/khler
Summary: [Currently being re-written]Alaska wants to forget. Katya wants to disappear.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RBCQ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RBCQ/gifts).



 

The road had always seemed seductive to Katya, empty road all to herself and all worries left in Boston, no school and no old friendships taunting her. It had all seemed better in theory. When she was younger she never had to think of money, or where she would sleep or what would happen if her car broke down. She’d never been one to worry about details, the small things - although they made up most of the picture - never mattered much to her. 

Katya could never say that she didn’t expect life to turn out this way, because she had done so much more than expect - she'd been planning it. Her life had been a series of wrong turns, stuck in a metaphorical car and hoping that eventually she'd complete the circle, find the right place to start over.

And now she had it. College and family, old friends she hadn’t talked with for years, drugs she had sworn herself to not touch to begin with could all be damned. This was her new beginning, and it was going to be _hers_. Her bank account still had the small amount of money that was supposed to go to school, and a car that was at least sort of emptied of old school papers, wrappers and receipts that she couldn’t read even if she wanted to. It was just her, and a road that wasn't as empty as it seemed, and a sky with stars that she could always imagine belonged to her. 

So what? Sometimes life doesn’t work out the way you had intended it to. Sometimes, you end up being an alcoholic at age fourteen, with a family that accepts you way too easily but it still doesn’t end up being enough. Sometimes the absolute urge for something more than tepid vodka on lonely nights hits you, and that’s when the drug-dealer from two blocks down the street becomes a close contact, always kept on speed-dial.

It had started in the fall. She’d said goodbye to everyone, knew they had expected her to turn up at some college campus, hoped that this trip would make her alright again. No matter how long it took.

Winter had been the hardest. Her car could only protect so much against the cold nights, and she’d been to stubborn to drive to warmer grounds at first.  
Then she ended up driving to Florida on a whim, picking up a lifter that swore he wouldn’t kill her, and that only ever wanted to come back to his family for winter break. She stayed until the cold passed, until the last snowflakes had melted into the thawing ground. As much as Katya would like to make some Lana del Rey references about how that man was her only summer, spotting visions of herself dancing, learning how to deal with freedom from losing it all, she would refrain. The real point was, that it was a new year, with same old Katya, with a questionable High School diploma, and a slowly decreasing amount of money in the bank. She spent as little as she could, touched the money when she only ever had to. She did what everyone else did when money ran low, and got creative. The car needed gas, and she needed food, and the money she had was supposed to go to a future. It wasn’t going to go to her own anymore, but she still wanted to keep it there. For emergencies bigger than temporary poverty.

 

* * *

 

Truck stops at the earliest hours of the mornings hadn’t seemed like a tempting place at first, but that was before all of this started. It could be a fresh start, if you got there when they sun was just about to rise, and fresh pots of coffee was just about to be started. Any earlier, and it was a game of playing hide-and-seek with truckers that wanted too much. Any later, and everything would be okay, but the scent of gasoline would’ve already spread across the place a little bit too much for her liking. This wasn’t a time for filling up the tank. This was a time for when she had extra money to spend, choosing to spend it on the two addictions she had let herself keep - caffeine, and nicotine.

  
She was in an isle, consider if she really needed to eat something, or if she could attempt to dull out her appetite for another day with smokey lungs. The idea didn’t seem tempting, but no good ideas never did. She was distracted when she got to the small freezer, and a girl was down on the floor, either crying silently or sleeping. She was a mess, reminding Katya of what she had probably looked like on the early days of her never-ending road trip. It’s not like she, herself had become some sort of expert on the matter, but she’d figured out how to shower with no shower, and how to sleep in a car without waking up feeling like you want to die. This girl.. she hadn’t. 

It’s not like she’d never ever run into someone who had the same plan as she had. On the rare occasions that she did talk with someone, it was with people like her, all with varying degrees of success. Girls turned to prostitution when things got rough, and boys didn’t turn anywhere at all. Maybe Katya just hadn’t heard those stories, but she assumed that those boys where the same ones who’d end up leering at the girls at 4.30AM at a truck stop, and sell drugs to a fifteen year old girl.  
The girl on the floor stirred, the blonde bird's nest of hair that was perched on her head moved slightly, and a shut-up-I-don’t-want-to-wake-up-yet groan slipped from her lips. Katya sat down opposite her in the isle, accidentally knocking the other girls naked feet together with her own clad ones.   
”Hey,” she nudged her arm lightly. ”It’s time to wake up.”  
”Just let me sleep.”  
” ’fraid I can’t let you do that.” Another one of those typical morning groans passed by, ”..Mostly because it’s five in the morning at a very questionable location for anyone to be at, and my morals may be faint, but they’re strong enough to make me feel guilty for leaving you here.” The other girls head snapped up - Katya swore she needed to come up with a nickname, - and the girls brown eyes opened to stare into Katya’s eyes, panic blasting at full volume.  
”Did I fall asleep?”  
”Oh, wow. I expected some greater first words from you.” The eyes turned from panic-mode, to one that had more of a stop-with-the-bullshit type of feel.  
”You probably did. It’s how most people end up being asleep.” Katya got a closer look at the girl with the formerly panicked eyes, and almost asked her if she’d been in an accident of some kind. The mascara and eyeliner had presumptively lined her eyes and not her cheeks, but that was where it was sat right now. Some lipgloss was still glossing, most of it not on her lips, but hey - you take what you can. Katya couldn’t do much other than glare at her outfit, because sure. Sometimes Katya missed the options of having more than three outfits to pick from, but the option of a way-too-fucking-cropped top and a tight fitting skirt, might not be one that she would pick.  
”Jesus Christ, you’re a mess.” ”  
”…And they say there’s no such thing as kind strangers.” Her voice was all kinds of drawled out, dragging out every word in a way that made them sarcastic without her bothering to try.

Katya was probably known for being overly dramatic in that super depressing way, but this girl was a walker. Not in the zombie way, but in the literal one. They were at a truck stop, no houses nearby. Nothing at all that could lure a teenager all the way out there. Her dirty feet suggested walking, and the tiny scars that ran across her legs screamed of running through fields. Walker. Katya had driven away from her troubles. This girl had walked.

”Believe me, I’m one of the good ones.”  
”Are you a goner too?"  
”That sounds too pretty for us. But I guess it could work. Full-time roadie, another cliché teenage runaway. Wandered. It could all work” They shared a smile, as if they finally had some sort of inside joke.  
”I’m Alaska. And I’m as cliché as they come.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alaska remembers.

They didn’t talk about it, but Alaska followed Katya to her car - she had expected something smaller, somehow daintier. Instead she was greeted by a fucking jeep. There was slight scratches in the paint, little notes that told that it clearly wasn’t new, something to be expected to come from neverending travels. But not from a girl wearing an oversized plaid shirt and wooly socks over a pair of patterned tights, and yellow fucking clogs.

”I need you to drive me out of this state. You can leave me wherever, and I won’t bother up to that point, but that’s all I need you to do.”

Katya looked at her, exhaled in a short I’m-so-over-this way, and crawled to the backseat of the car in a way that could never be described as graceful. Alaska tried looking over her shoulder to see what she was doing, and was met with a sweater thrown in her face.

”I’m not driving you - much less dropping you off - anywhere as long as you’re dressed like that.” It was a thick slightly-terrible looking Christmas sweater, followed by a pair of sweatpants that would probably end up being too short on her. Most things in Katya’s car closet would probably misfit on Alaska’s lanky body, who stood at least a few inches taller than the other girl.

”I might have a pair of boots that this one guy left here, but they might not fit.” Katya handed them over without any response from Alaska. She gathered up the clothes in her arms, already putting on the too large shoes. _How fitting,_ she thought, _I won’t fit._

”Where do I get dressed?”

”You could go to the bathroom over there-” Katya pointed to one of the small rooms next to the truck stop, ”- and probably end up risking some health. Or, you could just crawl back here.”

The idea of getting undressed and redressed in the probably disgusting bathroom seemed like a dumb one, but getting naked in front of a stranger she’d have to sit next to for an undecided time didn’t seem as such a good idea either. Plus, this way she got to have her Gone Girl-moment.

”I’ll be right back.” Katya just raised her brows slightly, but didn’t say anything as the taller girl walked away.

* * *

 

Alaska tried to walk with as much confidence as possible as she walked away from the car - hoping that Katya wouldn’t drive off and leave her stranded here.

There was a mirror in the bathroom, but she turned the other way as she stripped out of her own now-tattered clothes, immediately feeling warmer as the thick sweater completely engulfed her, hanging low over her hands. The sweatpants fit just about as terribly as she had thought- ending mid-calf and and clinging to her leg in a way that they shouldn’t. The boots fulfilled the slightly post-apocalyptic homeless look. She forced herself to look in the mirror to wash her face before she could leave, and what met her was more disturbing than anything else in the dingy room. The makeup that had looked perfect a few days ago laid streaked across her face, everything having dripped down with rain or sweat or tears. The powdered contour looked more like fading bruised than anything else. Katya must’ve been some sort of angel to not even mention it to her. Alaska carefully rubbed water and soap on her messed up face, hoping to remove most of the traces from the previous nights. Even as her face was back to it natural state, black circles and all, her hair was still slightly messier than she was familiar with, but that was okay - she didn’t want familiar right now.

Trying to comb through the knots in her hair with just her hands turned out to be an impossible task, but eventually she got the worst of it out. She left her old clothes in the trash, and it felt like a metaphor.

 

* * *

 

”What’s on your cheek?” Katya reached out her hand to the darkened spot underneath Alaska’s cheekbone. It had gone from brightly colored to a mellowed-out brown, but was still painful to Katya’s cold touch.

”It’s nothing.” She said sharply, making Katya flinch slightly.

”Wow, relax. Just trying to start a conversation.”

Alaska stayed silent as the car started up.

”So. Where are you heading?”

”I told you. Just get me out of this state and I’ll be fine.”

Katya looked at her for a minute, trying to decipher the other girl.  
“We’re going west.”

 

* * *

 

”Are we just going to ignore the fact that you were asleep in the middle of nowhere?” Katya said, breaking the silence they’d had. She wasn’t used to being silent once she was around people, and most times when she was in her car she kept the radio on. Things weren’t supposed to be this silent. Alaska looked up from where she had been leaning against the window, staring at the buildings that were rolling past them. She looked over at Katya carefully, before returning to the nature outside.

”Okay. Let’s talk about something else. Will I get in trouble for driving a child across the country?”

Alaska gave up on solemnly staring at things.

”I’m not a child. I’m eighteen. My birthday was three days ago. ”

”Oh. Do you want to talk about it?”

Alaska sighed heavily, before attempting eye contact with Katya again.

”I thought Sharon was good for me. I don’t know why. Next to her, anyone could end up looking like an angel but- I thought she would be good.”

 

_Alaska had blended into the first years of high school with ease. It was a simple way to college, and to a future. Sharon had walked up to her locker one day, smooth as only she could be. Of course Alaska had noticed her. It was impossible not to, with her laugh and her face and her fucking clique that never seemed to do anything but to get into trouble._

_Sharon just strutted into her life, and everything started to fall apart.  
_

”She was so beautiful. And my life was a mess after I met her, and I didn’t even care because I got to see her face every day, and I got to see her happy. I got to touch her, and I got to kiss her, and then I got to love her. ”  


_Three months before her birthday, and she could barely remember the last time they had been sober. It was a mess of alcohol and drugs (but mostly drugs), and sex that should’ve been bad, and fights that never actually got to happen. The slow digging in her heart could be suppressed with another line, another bottle. She didn’t like waking up. The hangovers always felt too much like regret. Eventually she just stopped sleeping. At night, she would sit outside, watching her hands shake and listening to her breaths shake with the same rhythm. During the day, she would do anything to keep her awake, dreading the moment when she would crash._

 

”I never realized that she ruined me.’

”And then you did?”

”No. I didn’t.”  


_She crashed. She went back home and cried for days, ignoring the itch in her body, not sure if she wanted a distraction or wanted to have Sharon near her. They were the same, anyways. Her family didn’t understand, but they pretended they did, and Alaska pretended that she was fine. Life wasn’t okay, but it could be. One day._

  
”I think I was actually okay for a while. And then March came around to destroy everything.”

_Sharon showed up on her doorstep the day after her birthday. It was a blur of really bad decision making and attempting to make up for time that she had missed._

_  
Twenty-four hours later she had made up her mind. Drugs and drinks had drained her body, leaving her alone in a room with nothing but a dripping tap to keep her company. She’d spent weeks having a clean mind, and it was like everything came back to her at once. Three months earlier, she had been crying her eyes out, missing this life with all she had. Three months before that, she had been been living on highs to make up for the lows, dark purple marks covering her body. She didn’t remember when Sharon’s grip had gotten so tight. It was never because of sleepless nights, drunkenly tripping in stairwells - the blame fell on clenched fists and sharp nails, both reaching her body and never really letting her go without leaving a memory._

  
  
“That sounds fucking rough.” Katya was staring straight ahead at the road, letting Alaska deal with her emotions as privately as she could.  
“Yeah, well. That’s why I’m here, I guess. I just want to forget it all ever happened.” There was a sigh in her voice, a note of tiredness buried beneath every word she spoke.

“It could be good for you to go away from it all for a while-”  
“Forever. I’m not going back there again.” Alaska’s harsh words broke the conversation that had almost started, letting them both go back to the silence that seemed to have become a theme between them now.


	3. Chapter 3

“How old are you?” It was yet another tentative attempt at a conversation from Alaska. This time there was no silence to break, though. Katya having started the radio a few miles ago, letting it play softly on a low volume.

“I’m turning twenty in a few months.”

“Oh. So have you been on the road for a long time?”

“Uh, since last fall.” Katya’s eyes were still pointed at the road ahead of them.

“Why did you do it?”

“Same reason as you, I guess. There were shitty people, with shitty lives, with shitty drugs and all of a sudden I was one of those people.” Katya shrugged slightly, ”I didn’t have a shitty girlfriend though, so that’s always a plus. I mean, I didn’t have a good one either.”

”Oh.”

And then the conversation ended, neither of them entirely sure what the next move was supposed to be.

 

Katya didn’t know how to do this. She’d never been a great conversationalist in the first place, and clearly nothing had changed. It was just plain awkward. Every comfortable moment of silence that they had, had so far been ruined by either of them talking. The one bright thing that Katya could see, was that they only had to stay together for a few days. She could drive Alaska to California; there was sure to be something for the younger girl to do there. Land of opportunities and hippies and all that. Just a few days, maybe a week.

 

* * *

 

”Where do you sleep when you’re driving?”

The sky was beginning to darken all around them, and the thoughts of sleeping with Katya in her presence scared her a little bit. It wasn’t that she had anything against her per se, - how could she dislike the person who was willing to drive her across the country? - but things was already awkward enough as it was.

”I normally sleep in the car-” _Shit._ ”-But I thought we’d stay at a motel for tonight.”

The idea of sleeping in the same room as Katya still wasn’t tempting, but Alaska could at least be happy that they wouldn’t literally have to cram themselves into the backseat of the car. It would probably end up being a night of Alaska thinking of her every move, making things awkward by trying to make it _less_ awkward.

”Y’know, we’re going to have to learn to have conversations that last longer than five minutes as some point?”  
“Or - hear me out - we could just accept that we’re both terrible at holding conversations?” Katya looked over at her, nodding her head slightly as if she was contemplating it, before focusing back on the road.   
“Yeah. That sounds a lot easier.”

The hours passed, the radio got louder and the sunset eventually came. The bright colors painted their faces with glowing oranges for a few seconds, before they went back to being illuminated by the harsh, cold light from the car.  
“Are we stopping anytime soon?”  

Katya barely kept track of the time anymore; she’d gotten used to driving on close to no hours of sleep for days on end, eventually giving up and crashing in her car - just sleeping for days until she was caught up; smoking enough to keep that addiction running. The nights was the thing she looked forward to when driving. They were the times where everything in her mind would get silent. There would only be the road and herself, cars passing by like the thoughts that grew silent - bright and fast, but ultimately forgettable. It was like meditation for her. She just had to keep that undecipherable goal in her mind. She just had to figure it out.

On the other hand, there was Alaska, who wasn’t used to that sort of lifestyle - mostly because she was a pretty sane semi-functioning human, who was aware of the fact that days and nights passed.

“Uh, if you want to we can stop at the next stop we see?”   
“Please? I’m exhausted.”

 

* * *

 

Said motel didn’t show up until about an hour later; and true to her words, Alaska was exhausted. So exhausted in fact, that she’d ended up falling asleep against the window, stretching her legs out on the floor so that they were just barely touching Katya’s own. The other girl had made a half-hearted attempt to wake her up, but she’d given up quickly, and resorted to walking in to pay for their room - single bed; they could deal with any potential awkwardness if it meant Katya could save an extra few bucks, - before walking back to give a fully-hearted attempt to wake Alaska up. And, after some hassle, she ended up somehow wrestling the other girl into their room, with a surprisingly low amount of worrying looks thrown their way.

Alaska stumbled around the small room as Katya locked the door (in her eyes, Alaska resembled a lost giraffe), and she looked around the room. She hadn’t expected anything less than what it was; a depressing room with gray walls, a paint-chipped door to the bathroom, and a bed that probably shouldn’t come near a UV-light. Katya did some sort of half-assed attempt to stare her down from having to drag her all the way from the car, but gave up when Alaska’s tired eyes barely even acknowledge it.

“I’m not really a morning person.” It wasn’t even supposed to be an excuse, and they both knew it, but Alaska had barely gotten a few hours of sleep the previous night, and had somehow managed to keep her eyes open for the entire day.

“It’s not even morning, what the fuck.”

“Shush.”,

Katya let the conversation go as Alaska basically fell onto the bed, and she moved on to stripping off her clothes to dive into the _very_ dingy shower, before trying to cram herself into the bed. She game some sort of attempt of a shove to get the other girl awake enough for her to either get under the covers, or get in the shower.

  
She was asleep before she found out which one.


	4. Chapter 4

"Did you know that you snore in your sleep?" Alaska looked up at Katya across the diner table.

* * *

 

That morning, Alaska had felt calm for the first time in months. It was as if the world had stopped spinning for just a moment, letting her lie there in the uncomfortable motel bed with an even breath and an empty mind. Sure, the sun might’ve been shining a little too bright onto her eyelids, almost leaving her eyes too warm for comfort, and her left arm was painfully asleep due to the body lying on top of it, but her other hand was resting on soft skin, and her head was nestled onto someone’s shoulder.

Calm.

 

And then eyes snapped open, because  _ she was leaning her head on someone’s shoulder. _

She hadn’t expected to have magically teleported away from the crappy hotel or something, but maybe a tiny part of her had thought Katya would leave her in the middle of the night. Clearly Alaska had proven herself to not be the best partner for a long drives; all she had to offer was a million different ways to end conversations.    
  


She tried to get a good look at the other girl, to try and fully observe her, but due to lying on half on top of Katya, she wasn’t quite able to move without risking waking her up. There was this weird feeling bubbling up within her, and she knew her body should still be tingling with heartbreak, but there was still a difference between  _ knowing _ and  _ feeling _ . Sharon was a memory - not fading, but still not opaque in her mind. She would stay as she was, never taking over Alaska’s life again. 

But Katya was this  _ feeling _ and it was freedom, and terrible conversations, but it was a start; Katya wasn’t just a new feeling - she was the feeling of  _ new. _

 

* * *

 

"Did you know that you are actually a snake when you sleep?" Katya smirked at her comment, continuing to swirl her final bit of pancake around the plate again, trying to get it to soak up the last of the syrup.    
"No, you're actually like a fucking octopus. I'm surprised you don't have suction cups to keep you attached.”

“Shut up. You might be bony; but you’re comfortable as fuck.” Katya tilted her fork towards Alaska, before taking the last bite of her now syrup-drenched pancake.    
They were both in the same clothes as yesterday, the only exception being their swapped shirts - the sweated covered in tiny Santa’s looked better on Katya than it ever did on Alaska, - and Katya had put on a pair of beat-up sneakers, because  _ clogs just aren’t practical. _

 

* * *

 

Once they were back on the road, this time with Alaska behind the wheels this time, the silence lingered for the first few miles, like a fucking curse - but this time the awkwardness was gone, and Katya was soon enough telling her stories of the people she had met, because  _ they need to be heard. _ Her feet were thrown up on the dashboard of the car, looking way too comfortable than any person in a car ought to be.   
There seemed to be an endless stream of people who’d run away from good situations, and double the amount who’d been running away from bad ones. 

There was a girl who’d told Katya of her mother, constantly plagued by the wanderlust digging into her mind. Eventually she herself had fallen for it, leaving her father to deal with the heartbreak of losing his two girls. Then, there was some who’d just used Katya to catch a ride.   
“I’m like the shitties Uber driver that there could ever be. You never know where I’ll be, or where you’ll end up - but you’ll probably get a pretty good story to tell.” She kept her eyes almost glued to Alaska as she was telling her stories, the small bits of life that those people would only ever become. It was part due to there being nothing else to look at when she, herself wasn’t the one driving, and part because Alaska was  _ interesting.  _ She was honestly pretty terrible traveling company, and Katya doubted she’d get any fun story to tell after it all was over. Which was stupid, and she knew it, because people were so much more than that - but Alaska would get so much more. She would get her life back. Although there was part of her story that she still hadn’t told Katya, she had needed to get away from it. And then Katya had shown up, offering her a ride to wherever.    
Stories wasn’t what mattered here. The important bit, was that Katya had made Alaska smile, and  _ oh god _ didn’t that look beautiful.

 

The drive wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for Katya, but it was entertaining to see Alaska looking out the windows as she’d never seen the scenery before, even though they were still barely out of Pennsylvania.   
  


* * *

 

The sky was beginning to darken outside the car, and Katya lowered the volume of the radio before speaking. 

“Hey, can you pull of by that lake over there?”    
“What?” The only place to pull over, was a slightly suspicious road leading into a forest, a lake barely visible through the trees.

”C’mon, I’ll make it worth your while.” Alaska looked at her doubtfully ”I haven’t lied to you so far.”

“To be fair, ‘so far’ means two days. And you could’ve lied in that time.   
“We haven’t talked enough for me to lie to you.” 

Alaska still pulled the car off of the road, driving them as close to the lake as she dared. The sun was due to set in just a few minutes, the sky and the wates already starting to radiate with the pink light. Katya grabbed a blanket from the backseat, before exiting the car, dragging Alaska along with her.

”What the fuck are you planning on doing?”    
“Shush, you’ll find out. Just come up here with me.” Katya said, as she proceeded to climb to the roof of the car with an intricate series of movements.

”That doesn’t even seem slightly safe.”   
“If you wanted safe, you should’ve waited for another car.” Katya said calmly as she looked down at Alaska from the roof.

Alaska sighed heavily, before climbing after the other girl with some difficulty; most of it coming from the fact that there really wasn’t any good way of climbing a car. Katya had placed down the blanket for them to lie on, to offer some sort of protection against the cold metal, and threw another one across both of their bodies as they lied down.    
“Okay, so you’re about to experience one of the  _ many _ perks of living in a car.” Katya pointed out towards the sun that was beginning to set. She was resting her face on her hands, keeping her elbows stable against the blanket covered car.    
  


Yesterday Alaska had just seen it out of their window, but this time it was right in front of her. The entire lake lit up, obviously reflecting the - what seemed to be - infinite shades of the sun. Alaska looked over at Katya, who was staring right back at her.   
“This is your moment. Just look at it - it’s beautiful.” Katya said, before the both of them returned their eyes to the sky.

 

And it  _ was _ beautiful; there was no point in denying it. Alaska had of course seen sunsets before - she had woken up with them, seen them with hazy eyes and an equally hazy mind. She had memories of seeing the sun flicked one last time, just before the start of bonfire parties, just as someone started playing music at ear-splitting levels, and just before teenagers started draining bottles as if their young lives depended on it. 

This time it was peaceful. It was enough to make strangers fall in love.   
  


It was an unknown hour, she was on top of a car, letting the cool air hit her, a blanket doing the best it could to protect them both against it. One of her hands found it’s way to grip Katya’s arm, she she wanted to clutch onto her with all she could. It was an unforgettable moment; two strangers, mesmerized with what was in front of them.

The sun eventually disappeared beyond the horizon, leaving the two girls in the dark. 

 

Alaska turned her head to face Katya again, who was already looking at her. She was what should be too close for comfort, but it was miles away from being anything but comforting to have her so close to Alaska in the dark.   
“I love sunsets,” Katya kept her voice low, almost at a whisper, as if she was trying to not break something.

At first Alaska didn’t quite know what, but when she listened, it was like there was magic all around them: fishes who dove up above the water in the hopes of catching something, leaving small noises behind them. The birds of the forest who’d just returned from their winter homes, already in the process of building up new nests, new futures.  _ Fitting. _

”Do you know what I love more?” Alaska shook her head. The silence between them was so intimate, a nice contrast against the normally stiff one. Their bodies still only linked by Alaska’s hand still holding onto Katya’s arm. It felt like it was more.   
“Stars,” Katya broke the contact in order to be able to lie down on her back to see the sky above them properly. And then they were just two girls looking at the universe, at what was above them - right in front of them. Katya loosely threw the blanket on top of them again. 

“I never bothered to learn what any of the constellations were called,” She spoke slowly, determination to finish what she’d started silently showing through her voice.    
“But when I was younger, and then I would see the stars as I was walking home, it was the only thing I could find to focus on. The entire world would just be this blur of noise and colors and shapes that I didn’t feel like to decipher, but the stars were so far away, that it didn’t matter if they were blurry or not.    
Every day, the sun would set, and the stars would show. And it would feel like I was the only one around to witness it.”

Alaska had stopped looking at the stars at this point, only focusing on the way Katya looked as she was talking. She’d already proven her storytelling abilities during the day, but when it came to herself… It was as if every word took on a completely different meaning. Every syllable was more than just a sound.   
  


  
“I know it wasn’t like that, but it made me feel special at the time. Like, as if the stars wouldn’t be there if a high and hungover teenager wasn’t there to witness it,” She stopped to take a deep breath, carefully gripping Alaska’s hand underneath the blanket.    
“I ran away during the day. My parents thought I was driving off to college, and all I did was park my car a few miles away. I didn’t dare to drive until the sun had started to set. When I’d left the city, everything was dark - the only thing I had in front of me, was a road that could lead me to anything, and the millions of stars in the sky. It was like a sign; this is where you’re supposed to be. This is  _ what _ you’re supposed to be. I’m supposed to stay here, but I’m not  _ meant _ to  _ stay _ . I’m temporary. I can’t stay here. Everything has to end.”   
“It sounds so pretty when you say it like that.” And that broke the serious tension that had been hanging above them since Katya had opened her mouth. An almost-laugh flew out of the other girl’s mouth, ending up as nothing more than a smile directed at Alaska. She gripped their hands tighter together.   
“Hey, words can be pretty,” She looked up again, and there was some sort of question hanging above them, sitting right at the tips of their tongues. 

“We should probably sleep,” Alaska spoke before she could even think, staying just as quiet as she had ever been. 

“Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.” They were facing each other now, looking through every emotion that would show on the other person’s face, trying to analyze them until everything was a certainty. Katya broke the grip that their hands had been stuck in, carefully leaning in closer to Alaska, placing a feather-light hand on her cheek, thumb stroking her cheekbone carefully. It was just soft skin on soft skin, two girls lying on their sides now, eyes glued together, not bothering to focus on anything around them except for each other.

”Sleep.” Alaska repeated, knowing it fell on deaf ears, at this point just procrastinating what they both knew was to come.   
“Yeah, sure,” And then Katya surged forward, catching Alaska’s lips with her own, and it was like they had finally given into the magnetic pull that had lingered between them all night long. Katya’s hand slowly slipping down from Alaska’s cheek, to her shoulder, finally landing carefully on Alaska’s waist, softly pressing her down on the car as their lips slid together in an undecided rhythm.   


 

Alaska’s breath was still shaky between every press of their lips, her hands even shakier as they moved across Katya’s back. Everything was lying heavy on top of them from the earlier tension, hearts still beating too hard from the anticipation. When their eyes met, they were still heavily lidded, and only looking at the other person as the silence fell for a moment.

The forest behind them was still the same as it ever had been; every single animal moving along with their life like nothing had happened, the waters was still in front of them like it had been for centuries, and the stars above them couldn’t have moved a millimeter, but it still felt like something monumental had happened. 

And then Katya was pulled down closer to Alaska again, met with a warm mouth and soft lips, and more contact than she could’ve ever expected or wanted. Katya tried to lean in more than was probably humanly possible, pressing them together with every inch of visible skin, the blanket having proven to be nothing more than a nuisance at this point, and some sort of half-hearted attempt had been made to get rid of it.    
“Katya-” Alaska was silenced with another press of Katya’s lips, the other girl keeping her grip on her. The two of them were all soft moans and warm skin, radiating under the cold, starlit sky. Katya’s hand was still held firm on Alaska’s hips, and then-   
  


“What the fuck, Katya?” Alaska was staring up at her from the ground right next to the car, Katya having managed to push them both close to the edge to the roof, leading Alaska to have been pushed just a  _ little bit _ too far.    
“Wow,” Katya exhaled, her arm fallen from where it had been clutching Alaska, her face a completely blank slate of confusion.  “Are you already falling for me?” Alaska did that exhale-through-the-nose sort of laugh.

“I’m falling  _ away _ from you.” Katya threw the blankets down from where they had almost fallen off the car, and Alaska stood up to check for any fatal wounds.   
“Are you hurt, though?”    
“My shoulder fucking hurts, but it’s mostly my feelings,” She bunched up the blankets and held them close. “Y’know, with you pushing me off a fucking car.”

  
Katya smiled as she climbed down, following Alaska back into the car, the feeling of the other girl’s lips still lingering on her lips.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alaska & Katya find new yet another serious topic to discuss.

The day started off with Alaska waking up with a pain in her neck she had gotten  from sleeping in the backseat of the car, on top of the _many_ questionable items that Katya kept there. She stayed down for a few minutes, eyes shut, just listening to the low humming of the car, the radio playing the same songs as it had for days now.  
Then she realizes that the car was moving.

Katya was carelessly tapping along to the music with her hands on the steering wheel.  
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” The forest they’d been at the night before seemed to be long gone, a city looming before them, and the traffic already full of cars, people rushing to work in the late morning  
“Oh, I tried, and you told me to fuck off.”

 

Alaska did her best to try and examine her shoulder at the first place they stopped at - which turned out to be the bathroom of a fast-food restaurant. It was just as bad as she had expected; the fall had definitely _hurt_ , and the proof was right there, in the large purplish mark that was already starting to show. 

“Holy shit, that is a _bruise_ ,” Alaska nearly fucking screamed at Katya’s voice coming from behind her.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” She whipped around to stare the other girl down, who was just casually leaning against the recently locked door.

“Hey, cover your nips, sis.” She threw a T-shirt at Alaska. “I just thought you might want a shirt that’s at least _slightly_ clean.”

“Why can’t you just like, hand me things? Ever?”

“Oh, if only I could tell you that.” Katya completely ignored Alaska as the other girl was redressing, standing still in her corner of the room, lazily folding the plaid shirt that she’d taken away from Alaska.

  

* * *

 

“Why did I make out with you? How was that a good, solid plan?” Alaska said between bites of her fries.

“First of all; there was _no_ planning involved in that decision.”

Katya triumphantly waved a finger, as to emphasise that point.

“Second of all; the only thing we have in common is literally addiction, and an insanely good skill of staying quiet for long periods of time. We’re going to have to spend a decent amount of time together, might as well make the best of it.”

They sat cross legged across from each other in the front seat of the car, neither of them having the motivation to drive at the moment. Their meal of fried goodness probably wasn’t the best choice of breakfast but fuck, if it wasn’t a delicious one.

“Plus, there were stars and all that. The moment called for it.”

“Don’t forget the sunset - _very_ romantic.” Katya shrugged.

“Also, you’re pretty, and not as depressing as I previously had assumed, _and_ \- as it turns out - you’re also a pretty good kisser. And those are three pretty great things we have in common. But I don’t have the tendency to get away from people by falling from things.”

“Oh, I am plenty good at more things than just kissing and falling.” Katya looked up at Alaska with a smirk.

“You know that you’re going to have to prove that at some point, right?”

“Prove that my nails aren’t this short for no reason? That won’t be a problem.”

 

  

The daily car ride hadn’t actually gotten to start yet, but Katya had managed to make the backseat functional again, and they both found out that it was a much better place for holding conversations  - the main reason being that Katya could have the full freedom to gesture with her arms all she wanted, without hitting something possibly important.

“So, when are you going to stop this?” Alaska asked from her corner of the seat.

“Stop what?”

“I don’t know, driving?”

“Oh, like, ‘when will I jump off the freeway of life?” Katya raised an eyebrow at her.

“I hate you for phrasing it like that, but sure. What’s your end goal? When are you planning on stopping this living-on-the-road thing?”

“I’m not.”

“…Ever?”

“As far as I’m aware, this is my purpose in life.”

“Your purpose in life is driving a car? Really?”

“Hey, everyone has their thing.”

 

“Don’t you think that you’ll ever want to settle somewhere?”

“Alaska.” Katya stared her down. “I didn’t like living in Boston. I didn’t like being stuck in the same routine every day, with the same people. It got boring, and when things get boring - they get bad. I didn’t like that, I still don’t.”

“Oh.”

“It makes me anxious, it makes me feel trapped, and it makes me feel like I’m being tied down. I don’t like it.”  
  
  


“Don’t your parents care that you’re gone?”  Alaska asked, yet again disturbing a calm conversation with a somewhat serious subject.

“Alaska, oh my god, why can’t we just have normal conversations?” Katya glared at the other girl for a second before she started talking again, any traces of her previously calm expression gone.

It wasn’t that they didn’t care about her, they cared _so_ much. _Too much.  
_ She had hurt them, let them down in every way possible. Parents shouldn’t see their kids suffer from such heavy things at 14. They should see them be upset over fights with friends, or break ups from stupid relationships. Not crying over withdrawal.

Katya had grown up too fast, and she only had herself to blame for that.  
They cared about someone who didn’t deserve it. She had proven to them again and again that she could always let them down, just _a little bit more_ than the last time.  
Now she was 18. She knew they wouldn’t come looking for her. They knew there wasn’t any point in it. This time she was gone for good.

 

Maybe - and just maybe - when she’d found what she was looking for, she would track them down again. But for now she’d hurt them too much. She couldn’t face them until she had fixed herself. Not until she could be the daughter that they’d deserved all along.

“I think that about my parents too.” Alaska said silently, her hands still in her lap, and eyes aimed directly at Katya. “That they deserve better than me.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t want to like, compare our lives. But just…”

“They deserve better than someone who was always stuck in a haze, only to break out of it crying, only to let them believe - hope - that it was this time it was over, only for me to jump right back into it. I know they wanted a perfect daughter, and I also know that for a while there, they must’ve thought that they had just that, and then I fucked it all up. Maybe the only option I had left was to disappear like this, so that they could pretend that it had all turned out better. Because they deserve that.”

Katya looked at her, with what seemed to be suspicion deep in her eyes.

“You and I… We are similar in so many ways.”

“We were probably bound to meet.”

“It may be so,” Katya said, even though she didn’t believe in fate.

 

The conversation of the day died down after that, an air of awkwardness still lingering between them until Katya raised the volume on the radio, and at that point Alaska wanted to scream slightly. They could hold conversations about the bad shit that had happened with them, both knowing that there would be no repercussion, and still it would all end with this awful silence.

Honestly, Alaska hadn’t even planned to run away this far. Katya had picked her up, offered to drive her to wherever - and that’s where Alaska was going. To somewhere that wasn’t home, but some place that could be. Katya could potentially just drop Alaska off when she got tired of the other girl, continue driving, leaving Alaska with no way of ever contacting her again. And wasn’t that a terrifying thought, because sure, two days was not a long period of time, but it had been enough for them to tell each other about what had brought them together. The deep and dark and _terrible_ things they had gone through in order to get to this point in their lives.

They were strangers, only knowing each other from what the other had told, and two days was _not_ enough time to get to know a person enough to be able to judge them.

It really was an oddly perfect scenario; both of them running away from things, both of them only having _one_ person to talk to.

  
And the idea that Alaska eventually would step out of the vehicle and say goodbye to Katya forever, terrified her.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Exit Music (For a Film) by Radiohead, but that's pretty much the only thing I took from the song,


End file.
